Not everyone was filled with nostalgia when Boans Ltd closed its doors at 1pm on Saturday April 12 1986.
Not everyone was filled with nostalgia when Boans Ltd closed its doors at 1pm on Saturday April 12 1986.
Thora Harper, a 62-year-old communist grandmother from Bentley, had a long memory. “There was nothing romantic about being a junior shop assistant in Boans in my young days, towards the end of the Depression,” she said.
“At the age of 14 I stood in huge queues outside the office doors in Boans for as long as they saw fit, sometimes from 8.30 am to 1pm, only to be rewarded by the sight of an arm issuing through an aperture in the door, waving us away.
“There was no courtesy, no thanks, and as there were no unemployment benefits we went back desperately next morning and the procedure went on again, heart-breaking and demoralising.
“I look back on those days with absolute horror and tell of them to my grandchildren as a kind of Grimm fairytale. I can honestly say that Boans turned me into a communist.”
Mrs Harper didn’t stop there.
“Even when I went to Aherns I couldn’t get a job until I bought a cheap crucifix to wear and gave myself a good Irish name because they wouldn’t hire anyone but Catholics.”
These strong recollections raise two important issues for the social historian. First, many employers had a difficult time during the Depression in making employment decisions. How did they cope? Second, sectarianism was rife in Western Australia, particularly between World War I and World War II. It has been well-documented on the Goldfields and in the police force, but most of the evidence remains anecdotal.
As part of my research, I would be interested to talk to anyone who was personally affected by sectarian practices in the workplace, particularly as it applied to the retail industry.
By all accounts, Harry Boan was an enlightened people manager. According to Ed Benness, who joined Boans as an office boy about 1932 and retired more than 40 years later, he was a great one for delegating authority.
Mr Boan “was a stockily-built fellow with a big moustache. He was bluff [and] hearty [and] very friendly. Even I, as an office boy, he’d greet me if we happened to be in the lift together. I think he was universally admired and loved by the staff.”
In the early 1930s Harry Boan called his employees to the foot of the famous stairs and told them that the business was running at a loss and he would have to cut costs to survive. He had a proposal but he wouldn’t implement it unless all staff agreed. He could dismiss a third of the staff, or he could work a roster system – two-thirds on, one-third off. Staff would be paid less but they would all get something. When trade picked up, staff would be re-employed.
There was universal agreement to this proposal. It did a lot for the morale of the staff, for Harry Boan’s standing in the community, and for the loyalty staff showed to the company.
It was also during the Depression that Harry and Frank Boan undertook further extensions, against the financial advice of senior staff.
The Boan argument was that they could afford it and it would create employment where none existed at present.
As union strength grew in the area of retail employment there were, no doubt, difficulties with and for Boans management. Further research will no doubt reveal some of these problems but the prima facie evidence at present is that Boans, the state’s biggest employer in the private sector, was enlightened and compassionate in its personnel management.
